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From: pamp@bcsaic.UUCP (wagener)
Newsgroups: sci.misc
Subject: Re: Re: Fluids and solids (was Re: H-less liquids)
Message-ID: <769@bcsaic.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 5-Nov-86 13:56:02 EST
Article-I.D.: bcsaic.769
Posted: Wed Nov  5 13:56:02 1986
Date-Received: Sat, 8-Nov-86 18:43:42 EST
References: <17@wjh12.HARVARD.EDU> <666@faron.UUCP> <18@wjh12.HARVARD.EDU> <1454@jade.BERKELEY.EDU> <13479@amdcad.UUCP> <754@riccb.UUCP>
Reply-To: pamp@bcsaic.UUCP (Pam Pincha-wagener)
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Organization: Boeing Computer Services AI Center, Seattle
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In article <754@riccb.UUCP> jmc@riccb.UUCP (Jeff McQuinn ) writes:
>> 
>
>Incidently; Van Nostrum flatly states that glass is a solid.  It sometimes
>shows properties like those of a super-cooled liquid.  
>
>						Jeff McQuinn just VAXing around

Glass -
	"A state of matter intermediate between the close-packed, highly-
ordered array of a crystal, and the poorly packed, disordered array of
a gas. Most glasses are supercooled liquids, i.e., metastable, but there
is no break in the change of properties between metastable and stable
states. The distinction between glass and liquid is solely on the basis
of viscosity, and is not necessarily related, except indirectly, to the
difference between metastable and stable states."
(Dictionary of Geologic terms,American Geological Institute,1976,p.188.)

	"...a mass that cools to a rigid condition without
crystalization...." (Websters 9th New Collegiate Dictionary,1984,p.520.)

Everything I've consulted (the above are only examples that are
available right now) point out that glass is a very highly viscous,
supercooled liquid, not what is classically called a solid.
 
Does anyone have a real good definition of a solid?

Most of the definitions I've run across for solids define them
as crystalline substances, or at least have the properties of
an orderly arrangment of basic units. As far as I know glass has
no ordering of its elements, hence its classification as an
amorphous substance. Anyone have any good references on hand?

Just curious,
Pam Pincha-Wagener